That night, Shoya couldn't sleep.
Not really.
He tried. He turned off the lights early, lay in bed under his sheets, eyes closed tight. But his mind refused to rest. It replayed the way Naomi's hands trembled under the table… the way Amari's voice had dropped when she'd said Kaori's name… and the way Takeda had looked across the classroom like he already knew too much.
Like he wasn't just watching the class .
Shoya gripped the rusted key still in his hoodie pocket.
It wasn't just about Naomi anymore.
Something bigger had always been circling Kaori's disappearance — and for the first time, Shoya could feel it moving under his skin.
By morning, the sky was still gray.
Clouds hung low, threatening a storm that never quite broke.
Taka nudged him awake with a piece of bread between his teeth.
"Dude. You're gonna be late."
Shoya blinked hard, sat up slowly.
Ken raised a brow. "Again with that sleep didn't much thing."
Shoya murmured, "Yeah. Just didn't sleep much."
Taka tossed him a packet of milk. "I figured. You were mumbling in your sleep.
Something about… flowers?"
Shoya froze. "...Really?"
Taka smirked. "Nah. Just messing with you. But you do look haunted."
Shoya didn't laugh. He reached into his drawer and pulled out the sketchbook again. The one from Kaori's locker.
He flipped to the page with the pencil quote.
"Some plants die loudly. Others just fade."
– Kaori
There was something in the way she'd written it. Like it wasn't just about flowers.
Ken: " and how can you sense that?"
Shoya : " i don't know it's just that i just feel it"
Taka: " come on we gonna be late todays topic is important"
Ken: " yeah we'll talk about this later"
.
.
.
.
Later that day, after the class which was ran by Takeda has come to an end, Shoya noticed naomi wasn't in class so he thought about yesterday but whatever he said maybe i'll see her later.
Shoya after class passed by the library window and paused.
Inside, Naomi sat in the far corner, legs tucked to one side, book open in her lap but barely read. Her eyes were fixed on the rain-specked glass. She didn't notice him watching. Or maybe she did — and didn't care.
She looked… distant.
Familiar.
Like someone already halfway gone.
Shoya turned away. He had something else to do.
Instead of class, he headed back toward the old art wing. His mind turned the pieces over and over again — the sketchbook, the dried flower, the coded messages, the photo of Naomi and Kaori.
Even tho he saw Kaori's photo project when he went tk see the old records of student when that assistant gave it to him.
But he thought things are still hidden.
"Keep looking. "
The message stuck to his thoughts like wet leaves.
Why had that part of the school — the art wing — been so quiet?
Why had Kaori's locker been so well hidden?
Why did nobody ever talk about the disappearance?
He pushed open the side door near the sculpture room.
The air inside was colder. Dustier.
The hallway was silent again.
He took out his phone.
Opened the old photo the unknown sender had given him — the blurry newspaper clipping.
Student Disappearance Near Art Wing .
He stopped in front of room 3-14 — the old visual development club room.
The doorknob rattled but didn't open.
Locked.
He crouched and examined the handle.
Not the same kind of lock as the lockers.
But then — footsteps.
Quick, deliberate, coming from behind.
Shoya turned fast, heart in his throat.
It was Takeda.
The new professor stood just past the hallway intersection, looking calm.
Takeda raised a hand, polite but firm.
"who are you? You're not supposed to be here."
Shoya scrambled for a lie.
"I—I was just… looking for the printmaking room."
Takeda's eyes narrowed, then shifted to the door Shoya had just tried.
His voice stayed smooth,
"That room hasn't been used in over a year, that's what I've been told"
Shoya didn't reply.
Takeda stepped forward once, slowly.
"If I'm not mistaken you were sitting in one of my classes but sorry i didn't get to know your name?"
Shoya:" yeah you're right I'm Shoya Hyukasa"
Takeda: " Sorry mr.hyukasa I'm new here and i really want to help you cause i want to build a good relation with my students but you have to forgive me the management told me not to let students hang out here"
Shoya didn't say anything just nodded slowly.
Takeda: " anything else i can do for you?"
Shoya : " no..o thank you professor "
Takeda: " now if you'd excuse me.. i hope we can meet again mr.hyukasa..."
He left with a smile on his face and there was a flicker of something behind his glasses.
Shoya didn't trust that smile.
But now he can't help it he can't continue so he left that place and went back to his dorm not even back to library as he wanted to talk to naomi why she was absent.
.
.
.
Back at the dorm, Shoya finally told Ken and Taka everything.
The newspaper clipping. The confrontation with Takeda. The sense that someone — or multiple people — were playing a very dangerous game, using Kaori's disappearance as some kind of cover.
Taka: " C'mon you really believe that?"
Shoya: " as i said it's just a feeling but kinda serious "
Ken looked stunned. "You think the school's hiding this?"
Shoya : " i really want to know this too... i want to know why kaori existed in our university and we never heard of her or her disappearance!?"
Taka shook his head. "No wonder no one remembers her. They buried it."
Shoya sighed. "I don't know who's lying anymore. Where shall i even begin again?"
Ken said, "Maybe that's why this unknown person is reaching out. Maybe they're not trying to scare you."
Taka added, "Maybe they're trying to help."
Shoya looked out the window. The clouds had finally broken.
The rain was falling again.
And he couldn't shake the feeling that someone was watching him from somewhere just outside the frame of his life.
The rain didn't stop.
By evening, the sky was painted in streaks of charcoal, and water streamed along the sidewalks like veins across stone.
The quiet in the dorm felt too heavy — even with Ken's casual humming and Taka's usual snacking, there was a weight between the three of them.
Shoya sat at his desk, flipping through the sketchbook again,
looking for something — anything — he might've missed.
But no new symbols. No hidden folds.
Just Kaori's delicate, careful drawings.
He paused at a page near the end — a sketch of the greenhouse, seen from inside.
A particular angle, one he hadn't noticed before.
The window frames were distorted, warped by perspective.
But in the corner of the drawing, drawn so faintly it nearly vanished into the paper, was a small door.
"There's no door in that corner… is there?"
He blinked. Stared harder.
"Guys," he said quietly.
Shoya: "Look at this."
Ken and Taka leaned over.
Taka frowned. "That's the greenhouse, right?"
Ken squinted. "Wait — is that… a back door?"
Shoya nodded slowly. "It's not there anymore. I checked. There's just a wall now. Covered in vines."
Taka: "Maybe it was sealed up?"
Ken: "Or maybe it leads somewhere."
The idea hit all three of them at once.
A sealed door. A missing girl. A quiet part of campus where memories were erased like chalk from a board.
Shoya reached into his drawer and took out the key again.
"What if Kaori wanted someone to find this?" he said.
Ken ran a hand through his hair. "Okay, but you said the door doesn't exist anymore."
Shoya stood up.
"Then we check."
Taka: "Now?! It's already—"
"Now," Shoya said. "Before I lose my nerve."
Ken:" but isn't it sealed ? They don't let anyone enter...except for naomi if you tell me"
Shoya: " leave that to me "
Taka: " you have the key?"
Shoya: " No.."
Taka: " you are not going to break it ? Are you?"
Shoya: " let's go before it's too late"
It was almost 9 PM when the three of them slipped past the dorm curfew gate and jogged across the wet campus.
Most of the lights had dimmed for the night. No professors in sight. Only the hum of distant streetlamps and the soft hiss of rain.
They circled the greenhouse — quiet, dark, looming like a forgotten cathedral.
Shoya opened the doorlock with a hairpin.
Taka and ken never knew shoya was that good at lockpicking.
And there it was. The back wall.
Overgrown with ivy. The same shape as the sketch. Faint lines in the brickwork. Like something had once been there.
"Help me clear this," Shoya whispered.
They peeled back the vines slowly, fingers cold and wet. Beneath the green, something metallic gleamed. A handle.
Taka stepped back.
"No freaking way."
Ken ran his fingers over it. "It's rusted shut."
Shoya pulled the hairpin from his pocket. "Let's try."
It didn't fit well and because of rust it wasn't that good.
But something inside him said it wasn't about unlocking this door directly.
He pushed harder — not the lock, but the door itself.
It creaked.
The vines cracked.
Then — a loud snap — and the door swung inward with a groan like a dying breath.
Cold air flooded out. Musty, like damp paper and mildew and something older.
They stepped inside.
The space was narrow.
Concrete walls. Looks like It was a storage for the greenhouse, and it's not used anymore!
Taka: "There's something off about this place…"
Shoya didn't respond. He was staring ahead, eyes fixed.
He was looking at the storage fully focused seeing what he can find, after some searching he found a drawn symbol on a small box there probably it has some greenhouse items in it but he was curious to know whats inside it.
He reached for the box.
But before he could touch it — his phone buzzed.
The unknown number.
"Not alone."
Shoya's heart kicked up.
He turned to the others. "Put your phones on silent. Now, and lower the brightness"
Ken obeyed instantly. Taka looked uneasy but did the same.
Shoya opened the message again.
No new photo. Just the words.
But something wasn't right.
He glanced back at the open door behind them.
Rain was still falling outside.
And then—a sound.
Not voices.
Taka cursed under his breath. "What was that?!"
Shoya didn't move. He whispered: "Back out. Slowly."
They reversed their steps carefully, never turning their backs, the door to the greenhouse.
When they reached it, Shoya shoved it open, and they stumbled back into the night air. And as the walked awa they saw a flashlight getting closer to the greenhouse.
They went back to the dorm not talking in the way.
Ken: " just a storage room i guess"
Taka: " now you got what you wanted mister ?"
Shoya: " ahh sorry this time i overthought it. It Was nothing that important just a storage room."
Shoya checked his phone again.
The message had vanished.
No record. No trace.
Just his own reflection in the screen, staring back at him.
That night, Shoya couldn't sleep again.
How did that unknown sender know they were at the storage room? How they knew someone is coming? And why there was the same symbol he found on the rooftop !? An eye with petals around!!
These thoughts was running in his mind
Others went to sleep but he was just laying down.
By morning, Shoya still hadn't closed his eyes.
Not really.
He stared at the ceiling while rain tapped a soft, erratic rhythm against the windows — like a second hand out of sync.
Taka and Ken had fallen asleep sometime after three, the buzz of their voices fading into snores and restless turning.
But Shoya's mind replayed the storage room.
The musty air. The vines. The symbol.
And the way the message came in before they were caught.
Not after.
Before.
He turned to look at his phone again.
No new messages.
The screen was blank, except for his wallpaper — the default, unpersonalized.
He hadn't changed it in months.
He barely recognized himself in the reflection.
That message… Not alone.
Who would know they were in there? And why would they care?
He rubbed his temples.
His thoughts weren't making sense anymore.
His hands still smelled faintly like rusted metal and wet leaves.
Just a storage room, he told himself again.
But it used to be something.
That was the point.
----
The next day, the skies cleared for a moment.
A rare break in the clouds lit the quad with a soft white light.
But it felt… staged.
Classes passed like wind. Shoya barely noticed them.
He saw Naomi in literature.
Two rows ahead.
Silent. Focused on her notebook. Her pen didn't move much.
During break, she disappeared again.
Not to the courtyard.
Not to the library.
Vanished like smoke between moments.
Shoya didn't follow.
He didn't know what he'd even say.
At lunch, Ken poked at his bento. "So… are we done with the mystery tour? Or are we breaking into more places tonight?"
Taka added, "I still don't know why flashlight guy was coming?"
Shoya shook his head.
"probably the security of course "
Ken: "since when our security was thus smooth with walking?"
They didn't answer that.
Instead, Shoya pulled the sketchbook from his bag and flipped to the greenhouse drawing again.
He noticed something new.
Not in the sketch — but on the edge of the page. Just along the spine. A tiny blot of ink. Smudged. Like a fingerprint.
Kaori's?
Or Naomi's?
He brushed it with his thumb. Nothing came off.
Just a faded trace of ..... what !!?
The same symbol!!! Eye with petals.
So it was connected to Kaori!
Something about that smudge made his stomach twist.
Later that evening, Shoya found himself wandering the back hall again.
Not to break in. Not to snoop. Just… to see it again.
The greenhouse stood in the dusk like it always had. Quiet. Still.
as if the night before nothing had ever happened.
But something was different.
He stepped closer and found it — a small white tag tied to the iron handle.
A plant label. The kind used for naming flowers. Handwritten.
No name.
Just a symbol.
A circle with a petals around it .
Shoya stared. He'd seen that symbol before.
In Kaori's sketchbook —
The page with the quote about fading.
He ripped the label off and pocketed it.
That night in the dorm, Taka was chatting with someone and had a smile on his face while Ken tuned a borrowed guitar.
Shoya sat at his desk, phone in one hand, label in the other.
Another message arrived.
Did you feel it?
That was it.
Shoya stared at the text. Unknown again.
He typed back, hands trembling:
Who are you?
What does that symbol mean?
Three dots.
Then nothing.
The typing stopped.
He stared until the screen went black.
Taka: "Yo, anything?"
Shoya didn't answer. He stood slowly and walked to the window.
(A storage room) That's what it was.
But someone had sealed it.
Not just with vines and rust. But with memory.
Like Naomi didn't want it opened again.
And maybe not because of secrets…
…but because it hurt too much to look inside.
To be continued in chapter 13...